Agape and Hesed-Ahava. David L. Goicoechea
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is born as the presence
of ‘the third’ party in the proximity
of the one to the other.
On the same page Beals explains:
This view is in contrast to theories of
original hostility, such as Hobbe’s,
which describe humans as naturally at war.
Levinas, on the other hand, describes an ego
naturally obligated to the other.
This obligation, which is one of Jewish justice, has to do with
my being a host and a hostage for every other even if his face
is not calling me because there is a nearness to every human
that obligates us to become our brother’s keeper and lover.
This is what the wisdom of love can teach me as it serves love.
This wisdom of love originates in the responsibility of one for the other.
This is what makes Levinas postmodern in that he goes beyond
the social contract theories that originate in a war of all against all.
The ethical relation is the beginning of political states and institutions.
As Levinas puts it on page 82 of Otherwise Than Being:
Proximity is not a state of repose
but, a restlessness outside the place of rest.
He explains that further on page 88.
In a sense nothing is more burdensome
than a neighbor. Is not this desired one
the undesirable itself.
When the face of the other calls me I should respond with caring love.
But when the third then appears looking at us I see that I am
responsible for him and all others as well and being a host for
any other makes me a hostage to all near me in proximity.
In my passivity I am persecuted as proximity becomes obsession.
II,3.7 That Lets Me Lovingly Substitute for Him
Throughout Otherwise Than Being Levinas has many sayings
that relate to substitution and on page 113 he begins a six-
page section on substitution in which he shows that
we are all responsible for everyone else and that the
material needs of my neighbor are my spiritual needs.
His idea of substitution clearly shows how ethics for him
is not a self-realization ethics such as Aristotle taught.
We do not practice virtue in order to be happy.
Rather, we should live in the best way possible in order to
help others to be happy; the face of the other
calls me to work hard to let that other be happy.
Whereas I used to work for my good I should now
substitute the other for myself and work for them.
Once we are looked at by the third and realize the brotherhood
of all men in newly felt proximity we see that we are the
suffering servant for all and a substitute taking on their needs.
The self as a suffering servant is an hostage and because of
our being the hostage there can be, as he says on page 117,
pity, compassion, pardon and proximity—
even the simple “After you, sir.”
All of this presupposes substitution (page 117):
the possibility of putting oneself
in place of the other.
so that his guilt and pain can become mine and not only his.
The wisdom of love shows us all of this so that we can come to
serve others in love as did the Suffering Servant of Second Isaiah.
Before that image was applied to Jesus the Jews saw themselves
as being persecuted by many people and they came to the wisdom
of love which let them offer their suffering even for their enemies.
That is a great wisdom that is at the heart of Levinas’ philosophy.
He explains it even further in terms of the glory of the sufferer.
II,3.8 With a Glory that Manifests the Unmanifest
On the next to last page of Otherwise Than Being as Levinas
is giving a summary of his book he writes, p. 184:
Signification, the-one-for-the-other, the relationship
with alterity, has been analyzed in the present work
as proximity, proximity as responsibility for the other,
and responsibility for the other as substitution: The subject
was shown to be an expiation for another, the condition
or unconditionality of being hostage.
When by my responsible action I say “here I am for others”
as Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Samuel and Isaiah said “Here I am”
I bear witness to their infinity and to the weight of their worth.
That weight or kabod in Hebrew is the glory of infinite worth.
Whereas the five mentioned here gave glory to God by their saying
of “here I am” to Him Levinas has us bear witness to the infinite
worth of every other by welcoming them even by being their hostage.
So the last big theme of Otherwise Than Being is that of glory.
Levinas’ definition of glory is that which manifests the unmanifest
even in its unmanifestness so we must now understand this.
As Levinas begins to treat glory on page 140 in a section called
The Glory of the Infinite he writes about inspiration and witness.
I bear witness to the glory of the other when I respond “me voici”.
That puts it better than even “Here I am” because the me is in the
accusative case and in my lowliness I witness to the height of the other.
Levinas thinks that this is the deepest truth of Judaism that it
can bear witness to the glory of all other faces calling out to me.
Levinas starting on page 142 contrasts his view with Descartes and
Kant and he even speaks off modernity for by keeping philosophy
and religion within the limits of reason alone there is no glory.
On page 146 he writes about the glory of the infinite that orders me
to the other so when I respond I am making this glory manifest.
Others can begin to see this glory when I bear witness to it.
II,3.9 Even in its Unmanifestness
To make manifest means to show somebody something by
holding it in your hand for them so they